by Mazzie Brossmann 32 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
Can anyone tell me if there are names for the different variations in Trinitarian belief? Or could any one point me to anything explaining what different Chritians subscribe to in thier belief of the Trinity? I have Googled my fingers off trying to find out, but all I come up with is the "Oneness" doctrine of the Penticostals. I know there has got to be more.
Thanks.
Can anyone tell me if there are names for the different variations in Trinitarian belief? Or could any one point me to anything explaining what different Chritians subscribe to in thier belief of the Trinity? I have Googled my fingers off trying to find out, but all I come up with is the "Oneness" doctrine of the Penticostals. I know there has got to be more.
Thanks.
I wrote a 60,000 word treatise addressing the Trinity which you can read here:
http://144000.110mb.com/trinity/index.html
It's not all that complicated. For the most part the Catholics and Protestants believe in the same Trinity doctrine.
“Although a few distinct doctrinal changes were eventually made, the Trinitarian concept emerged relatively unchanged. “The Reformers,” states the New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, “stood upon the ground of the Church catholic” in this matter. This meant, for many of the new-born Protestant groups, not only continued adherence to (and propagation of) the form of Trinitarianism advanced by the Athanasian Creed, but also - in many cases - actual approval and acceptance of the Catholic-spawned Creed itself” (Concepts, 14; in accord see the New Bible Dictionary, 1299-1300).
Jeremiahjs ran out of newbie posts and stuck this in my PM so I thought I would pass this on to the rest for your consideration. Does he make any valid points? Im limited to ten a day im new. John20:17 If Jesus were God he woudln't have left to return to his Father; his Father would have been him and there with him (his God and our God = one God, not Jesus he is our Lord and Son of God.) The NT descibes and empasizes Jesus being one with God as two seperate beings and has many scriptures that can be read to view Jesus as God, but that is wrong. Romans 10:9 God raised Jesus from the dead; if Jesus were God, God would have been dead and couldn't have raised Jesus. Jesus is the way to the Father not the Father himself. And God is the One seated on the throne(rev), the lamb(Jesus) is the one found worthy to open God's scroll. Jesus is a creation, probably God's first, he is not the Grand Creator but is in perfect harmony with God the One who has alwasys been. Jesus may be your God but Jesus's God is my God, may God bless you. My wife is a southern baptist and the view of the trinity in her church does not proclaim Jesus is God but is our Lord and Son of God with a oneness with God and God's Holy Spirit that is true and forever. 1tim.2:5 one God(Father Creator) one medeator(Jesus, Lord, Son of God) 1cor8:4-6,One true God-Father one true Lord-Son. Not the same being different beings different roles complete unison. But, i guess, beliving Jesus is God is the best thing to worship in God's shoes other than God Himself, and is not an unforgivable sin even if it is a lie. Son=Lord=Messiah=Son of God=Jesus, Father=God=Creator=Jesus's Father/God=Yahweh/Jehovah, Holy Spirit=God's Holy Spirit. This is my opinion and share it with many other christains in different congragations and have many scriptures to back that fact up. Sorry again im pm you but im out of post again today. God bless you and your war against lies.
To me, the trinity is a doctrine that tries to explain the relationship between Jesus, God and the HS.
God is in and is in perfect union with Jesus and the HS, just as Jesus is in perfect union with God and the HS and so on.
Does this make Jesus God?
For all intents and purposes, yes.
If you prefer to see it as God being manifested in Jesus and the HS, that is ok too, but you need to uderstand the limitations that manifestation can mean and there is no limitations in the Oneness of God, Jesus and the HS.
I am not a trinitarian, I don't think we need the Trinity doctrine to understand the relationship between them, but I don't see anythign wrong with the TRUE trinity doctrine, that God exists as God, Jesus and the HS, NOT 3 gods, but ONE God.
If Jesus were God he woudln't have left to return to his Father;
I don't know how many times I have to explain this but you have yet to address the God-man nature of Christ which would resolve many of your issues. The creature Jesus, who was not the Almighty, did not return to his Father because the flesh didn't come down out of heaven.
The divine person of Christ, even if sent by God the Father, and even if He voluntarily subjected Himself, did not in so doing become less equal to God with respect to His essential being, nature and essence. When the Word assumed a human nature he did not cease being God, but willingly assumed a different relationship; a different grade, order or manifestation as Tertullian theorized. His incarnation and obedience did not diminish the divine essence of His being or make Him less consubstantial. The divine Person of Jesus was still fully God, who chose a veiled glory.
Christ possessed equality with God prior to His incarnation, and then for a time veiled that glory, being always God in all of the co-equal attributes, but in the incarnation never using His Godly powers to better Himself. He was fully God, fully man, God taking on the likeness of sinful flesh (Rom 8:3), not a man adding Godliness. (Strong and Vine’s, 42)
Read more on this issue right here: http://144000.110mb.com/trinity/index-2.html
The NT descibes and empasizes Jesus being one with God as two seperate beings and has many scriptures that can be read to view Jesus as God, but that is wrong.
You need to take off the blinders. Something as elementary as the Catholic Encyclopedia explains it this way: " The doctrine of the Trinity teaches that “The humanity of Christ is a creature, it is not God” (ibid., 922). Hence, God-man. Read the information at these two links regarding the hypostatic union of Christ and then get back with us.
Further articulation of the Hypostatic Union - the nature of the God-man Jesus.
Romans 10:9 God raised Jesus from the dead; if Jesus were God, God would have been dead and couldn't have raised Jesus.
Wrong again. This is a direct quote from my web site at http://144000.110mb.com/trinity/index-5.html#22
Part 1 of 2
Jesus made it clear that he would resurrect himself from the dead. Referring to his body Jesus said, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up,” (John 2:19-22). Acts 2:32 appears to contradict Jesus. It provides, “This Jesus God raised up” (see also Galatians 1:1). To resolve this inconsistency the Jehovah's Witnesses argue that John 2:19-22 does not really mean that Jesus would raise himself up, even though it says so, but that “Jesus himself was responsible for his resurrection” (Reasoning, 423,424). They rely on Luke 8:43-48 where the ill woman with the flow of blood was healed not because she healed herself but because she exercised faith in Christ’s power to heal (ibid., 423), and this exercise of faith made her responsible for the healing.
This analogy, however, is misplaced because John 10:17, 18 says that Christ’s power to resurrect himself was a command (NAB) or charge (RS) given to Jesus from the Father. Yes, he was responsible for his resurrection as the obedient servant on a mission, but he also exercised a power granted to Him to raise Himself from the dead, a power and command which the ill woman of Luke 8:43-48 was not given, and who was not the product of a hypostatic union of God and woman.
This is why the Father loves me, because I lay down my life in order to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down on my own. I have power to lay it down, and power to take it up again. This command I have received from my Father. (John 10:17, 18 NAB)
Jesus was not talking about some abstract “responsibility” for his resurrection as the Jehovah's Witnesses claim (Reasoning, 424). The language is unambiguous. He had the “power,” and he exercised it.
cont. part 2 of 2
Neither was Jesus claiming, as the Jehovah's Witnesses argue, that Jesus raised “himself from the dead independently of the Father as the active agent…” (ibid.) because it was not the dead created humanity of Christ - who was not God - who resurrected Jesus, but the divine second Person of the Trinity, God the Son who is fully God, and who never dies (Habakkuk 1:12 NWT). And it was He who was in a position to raise up the dead body of Christ. Recall that the three Persons of the Trinity never act independently of each other (New Bible Dictionary, 1299, 1300), so the act of the divine Jesus was the act of the Father. “All works of the triune God ad extra are indivisibly one (Encyclopedia of Religion, 56).
This illustrates a fundamental flaw in the Jehovah's Witnesses’ analytical process, their inability to reconcile two “apparently” conflicting concepts which do not conflict at all. Galatians 1:1 states that God raised up Jesus, but John 2:19-22 says that Jesus raised himself. Rather than reading both passages together, they discard one in favor of the other. Or ignore it. Or try to reason it away, or just change the Bible to accommodate their theology, but in so doing they violate their own often repeated admonition to read different verses pertaining to a particular topic together.
Looking at Scripture from their point of view, then, the Bible would be full of irreconcilable contradictions: both Jesus and God can’t be Lord, but there is only one true Lord in the highest sense (Ephesians 4:5). Both Christ and God if separate entities can’t be Savior granting eternal salvation, yet there is only one such Savior (Isaiah 43:11; Titus 1:4, 2:6). If Jesus is God and the Father is God and there can only be one God, there is no contradiction in the Trinitarian world, but not so with the Jehovah's Witnesses whose answer lies in reducing all of Jesus to the status of man and denying the divine unity, nothing more.
If Jesus is alone in “having immortality” (1 Timothy 6:16 Green’s Literal Translation) it would mean, for the Jehovah's Witnesses, that the Almighty is not immortal, but we know that is not true (Isaiah 57:15). Similarly, all things were created and exist for God, but all things were created for Jesus as well (Colossians 1:16). And, Isaiah 44:24 states that God made all things, but at John 1:3 and Colossians 1:16 it is the Word who made all things and all things were created through Him and for Him, to mention just a few of these examples.
And, if there is only one true God (John 17:3) and Jesus is the true God (1 John 5:20), is there really a conflict? Not if you believe in the triune God which supplies a very reasonable answer if you take the time to understand what the doctrine actually teaches. These apparently mutually exclusive concepts aren’t exclusive at the expense of one or the other, but must be read together and combined which leads to only one conclusion - Jesus was, and is, God.
The Almighty would never inspire such blatant contradictions in His Bible, and He didn’t. So if God raised up Jesus and the divine Person of Christ raised himself then Jesus must be God if one is to give weight and meaning to both passages within the Trinitarian context.
And God is the One seated on the throne
They are BOTH seated on the throne.
Jesus does not cease being human when he enters heaven. It's a different human form.
"Fourth, the focus is on the humanity of Christ, although this humanity can never be viewed in isolation because, “In Jesus humanity does not exist in itself, but it is the Son who exists as man through his human nature. Jesus gives back his whole divine self to the Father on the cross in and through his humanity (Fundamentals of Christology, 320). He consummates his human experience in all these dimensions only in dying and rising to a new, definitive form of human existence (ibid., 317).
"Fifth, the exaltation refers to the resurrected heavenly Jesus that died on the cross, who does not cease to be human (ibid., 318), a glorified human yet still God the Son to whom every knee shall bow. And any exaltation that God the Son might have enjoyed was with respect to His grade, order, appearance, aspect or manifestation (Tertullian). It would be a change in order of precedence in operation, a change in the relationship, but it would not alter in any way the essential being, nature and power of God; that which defines the triune God as one."
More on this issue here: http://144000.110mb.com/trinity/index-2.html#10
Mazzie,
The Wikipedia entry for 'Trinity' does a pretty good job of dissecting it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity
Generally speaking, the largest Christian denominations (officially) share the same view of the doctrine. (Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Mainstream Protestant) Beyond that there is wide variety of beliefs. Moreover, individual members of Trinitarian faiths often have their own personal interpretation, which may or may not jive with orthodoxy.
It's also helpful to review some of the beliefs of non-Trinitarians:
This doctrine is in contrast to Nontrinitarian positions which include Binitarianism (one deity/two persons), Unitarianism (one deity/one person), the Oneness belief held by certain Pentecostal groups, Modalism, and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' view of the Godhead as three separate beings who are one in purpose rather than essence.
. . .
Arianism is defined as those teachings attributed to Arius which are in contrast to the current mainstream Trinitarian Christological dogma, as currently maintained by the Roman Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Churches and many Protestant Churches.
The term "Arianism" is also used to refer to other nontrinitarian theological systems of the 4th century, which regarded the Son of God, the Logos, as a created being (as in Arianism proper and Anomoeanism) or as neither uncreated nor created in the sense other beings are created (as in "Semi-Arianism").
At the heart of what defines the Trinity are these points:
-LWT
